Vote Dem?

 According to Mr Cheatum (Nashville Tennessean 1/25/25) the only way to save the United States is to vote Democrat in the November and subsequent elections. He is absolutely correct if you wish to preserve the US of A that we can watch playing out in Minnesota and New York, to name a couple.

Minnesota has experienced an absolutely overwhelming flood of illegal immigrants. In the past month that state has been investigated for over $9 billion dollars in Fraud (CBS Nesw 1/5/25). Add to that near continuous rioting and attacks on federal officers, and even local police, as they attempt to counter the influx of illegal immigrants by sending the worst of the worst back to someplace else.  Now, as the riotous protests continue with protesters continuing to flout the law, refuse to obey lawful authority, and now escalate the level of action to more direct physical attacks, lives have been lost.

New York is a little behind in the fraud department, but probably because of the promises of all the free stuff offered by their newly elected socialist Mayor. I won’t detail the problems, but just take a look at state finances and see which ones are in the red, fiscally, and compare it to those in the Red, politically.

Even before the socialist was elected Mayor of NY City, it was reported that, “ In just a few years, over 125,000 New Yorkers moved to Florida, taking nearly $14 billion in income....” Income does not include savings and investments.

 (https://capwolf.com/why-millionaires-are-fleeing-new-york-in-2025/) (https://abcnews.go.com/Business/rich-leave-new-york-city-after-mamdani-takes/story?id=127503351)

(https://nypost.com/2025/08/28/opinion/with-the-rich-already-fleeing-new-york-wholl-be-left-for-zohran-mamdani-to-tax/)

Coup de gras (https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathangoldman/2025/08/26/if-mamdani-raises-nyc-taxes-will-the-wealthy-leave-the-city/)

Yes, if a lawless, impoverished United States is the ideal, vote Dem.

Election Hoopla

Enough already! This is the third day since the election, and the flow of venomous invective, hate-filled screeds, and outright misstatements have not relented on social media. And, not to demean or diminish the originality of the criers, but it does, the verbiage is identical to the play book disseminated by the DNC and its water carriers, the main-stream media.

One point in question. “Convicted felon,” is flung about, usually at the top of the list of purported offences, as if it were concerning a major felony incursion into the safety and security of people or the country. As a matter of fact, the “conviction” is for a financial statement, supposedly overstating the value of property offered as collateral for a business loan. 

Now for the reality check. The loan was repaid in full, resulting in zero loss to the lending institution. And, as we loved to point out in high school and college debate, the legislative intent is critical in the application of laws. In this instance, fraudulently stating an inflated value of property in order to secure a loan that results in a default and loss to the offended party is the crime. This legislation protects the lender.

The actual value of the property in question can actually be questioned. Second, the lending entity, paid in full, did not suffer a loss as a result of the “perjurious disclosure” on the loan document. As the NBA and NFL say, on occasion, “No harm, no foul.” (Don’t get me going.)

So, as some famous man said, or should have said, “The People have spoken. Cut the crap!” If you are not going to help change the circumstances (notice I did not use the pejorative description, “the mess we are in,”) change circumstances for the better, then get out of the way.

And as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians (chapter 4, verse 6) “Be anxious for nothing, but with prayer and thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God.” Don’t worry, it will work out. No, God will work it out.

K amala’s Last Stand

Though the election is over, Kamala Harris can still thwart Donald Trump’s quest to become the 47th President. The defeated Vice-President can invoke the 25th Amendment, depose Jos Biden, and become the 47th President–for 70 days or so. (I predicted that he would not last a year. Some prophet, huh?)

“Take that! Donald Trump. You failed. I’m 47. You have to settle for being 48." Talk about a “poke in the eye with a sharp stick,” as a friend of mine used to say. And a small succor for the disappointment of losing an election. At least no one can any longer say that she never received a vote in a Presidential primary or election.

(Am I being kind? I’m trying to paint a dismal picture a little brighter. You’re welcome.)

Covenant School Shooting Nashivlle

 Concerning the so called manifesto written by the Covenant School killer, we are convulsed with calls and demands for its disclosure. Lawsuits and a multitude of voices raise a cacophonous cry to read it. On the other hand, the parents, school, and justice authorities are resisting.

There have been few published, logical examinations of the reasons for releasing or withholding of the papers. Here is such a defense.

First, the police who read it have declared that it is not a well-reasoned manifesto. It is a compilation of ramblings from what we now know was a disturbed, incoherent mind. There is no reason for publicizing this gibberish.

Incidentally, if the public is so desperate for some unconnected musings, my blog is available. But I digress.

Second, the same authorities who evaluated the value of the disconnected writings also note that there is no declaration of intent or evidence of planning involved. Again, there is no rationale for giving this deranged person his or her “fifteen minutes of fame.” 

Third, the major defense for withholding the documents by “unaffected or unconnected” persons is the distinct possibility that it will engender copycat actions. Ever since the unibomber achieved notoriety, our society has endured a literal avalanche of mass murders, many of which were inspired by the desire for recognition by the perpetrator. Even publicizing their names seems suspect. Just call them “the killer.” Names can be released well after the initial clamor and drama has subsided.

And fourth, there is historical precedence for withholding private details of the lives of both the victims and the killer. President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and the Kerner Commission investigated the entire incident. The details of that finding were sealed for 100 years with the explanation that the personal interests of all involved took precedence over the curiosity of the public. We all wanted, and demanded to “know what happened.” The major details were already public, and the rest were personal and not fodder for public display and consumption.

The claims of “prevention” following the publication have been disproved by legitimate authorities. How has the display of earlier “manifestos” prevented any subsequent tragedies? The “public’s right to know” has been met by the details of, 1. what happened, 2. who did it, and 3. how was it resolved. Nothing further is material to those of us with no “skin in the game.”

And speaking of skin, the actual parties who were affected have made their intentions and desires clear. Disclosure will most assuredly subject them to further trauma, and demonstrably contribute to additional incidents. The school shooting in Colorado was inspired by previous killings. Then the one in New England, likewise, was engendered by previous publicity saturated killings, and then Florida, and Texas. There is no need to proceed with a roll call of deranged debacles.

The authorities have the documents and any value gained from them has surely been gleaned. The desire for details can be satisfied after a suitable time of “cooling down.” Any possible value of the disclosure to the public can be gleaned in the coming years. There is no hurry to disclose it now. Go back and read the Columbine documents to satisfy the hunger for details. Those families still ache over their losses, but the immediate sting has subsided. The Covenant victims deserve the same consideration.

And as for the lawyer who declared that the families and friends are not victims, I would challenge him to look into his own soul and consider how he would react to the unjustified murder of his family member, child or grandchild or even the loss of his friends’ family members.

The Bible warns us that, “...in the last days difficult times will come. For people will be lovers of self....” Read the entire list in 2 Timothy 3, verses 2 through 5. This is a damning indictment, and we are living in the aftermath of events that validate this description from the Apostle Paul.

Let’s not contribute to the chaos or further encourage subsequent events.

The Abortion Debate: Part 2

In our previous discussion, we learned that a critical component of debate is the definition of terms. Those definitions must be reasonable, logical, and clear. Without a clearly defined definition of the terms of the debate, no germane, cogent discussion is possible. 

This installment is to describe a debate tactic. It is called the “even if,” argument. “Even if” a certain fact is, in fact, true, how does that change the tenor and course of the debate? We aver that the fact in question does not change the thrust, nor results, of the proposal and is either irrelevant or, possibly, contradictory to the opposing position.

An excellent example of this tactic, but, unused to this point as far as I know, is from the contest for Senator from Georgia. Senator Warnock’s supporters have accused Herschel Walker of encouraging and even facilitating former girl friends to abort their shared children. Walker is campaigning on a platform, of among other things, of being against abortion. The ironic part of this argument, is that Warnock, himself, is in favor of abortion.

In short, Warnock’s campaigners’ position is, that Walker is wrong and unreliable because he changed his mind. In fact, it would seem that the fact that he now opposes something that he allegedly supported in the past is the “burr under the saddle.” Or more likely, a “spur to the neck.”

To my knowledge, Walker’s response has been to deny the validity of the charge that he was involved in advocating for an abortion. Let’s apply the “even if” analysis to this question. Even if the incident in question were true, how does that change the force of the debate? If the position of favoring abortion was wrong, and he changed his mind, then why should he be excoriated and condemned? On the other hand, is it the direction of the change that is the sticking point? If he had changed from anti-abortion to pro-abortion would they still be against him?

Let’s explore other “changes of mind.” Here is a quote on a notable change of mind reported by that conservative bastion, CNN. (https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/03/politics/joe-biden-abortion-draft-opinion/index.html)

“Long one of the Democratic Party’s most moderate voices on abortion, Biden has reckoned with personal qualms rooted in his Catholic faith.

“He said early on in his career that while he supported individuals’ right to an abortion, he opposed federal funds paying for them. Later, he backed Republican efforts to ban so-called ‘partial-birth abortions,’ a non-medical term describing rare late-term procedures, and said he would have liked to go further in restricting them.

“In 2006, two years before he was elected vice president, he told an interviewer he did “not view abortion as a choice and a right.” A year later, he spelled out his internal conflict in an appearance on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press.’

“‘I was 29 years old when I came to the United States Senate, and I have learned a lot,’ he said. ‘I’m a practicing Catholic, and it is the biggest dilemma for me in terms of comporting my religious and cultural views with my political responsibility.’”

Here he admits that he changed his position, only in the opposite direction from Walker. It appears that Warnock’s supporters oppose the fact that he is now against abortion, rather than for it. “He is unstable and unsuited for the position.” Even that charge is illogical. If he is indeed, unstable, then he might change back to favoring abortion. That would be a win for the Democrats. Sounds like an argument that a Republican might have used in the primaries to vote for another candidate. If he changes now, it would be in favor of the pro-abortion position.

So “even if” Walker has changed his mind, it merely shows that he has evaluated the the facts and decided that he was wrong. It is alive, it is a baby, it is a baby person. And it has worth. We should not call it, an “it.” “He or she” is more accurate. However that evokes another debate, which I will forego. ("Whew," goes the crowd.)

Personal Postscript: If the voters of Georgia base their votes on a pro or anti abortion stance, they are pretty shortsighted. Soaring prices for the necessities of life, soaring crime rates, soaring numbers of illegal immigrants, and plummeting confidence by our allies in the resolve of America to defend them, and other critical issues obscure the import of whether a woman can “terminate a pregnancy at will.” If the entire Congress were for abortion, or against abortion, these issues would still dominate the lives of citizens for years to come. Focus on the critical issues.

Abortion Questions

Many abortion advocates has suggested that abortion bans subject medical personnel to unreasonable threats of legal action for performing some medical procedures that are deemed to be abortions. This, in turn, has the potential of harming a woman’s health by unreasonable delay in performing life-saving interventions. One example often cited is D and C, also known as: dilation and curettage.

There are times when a successful birth is not followed by the successful expulsion of the afterbirth. This retained placenta, according to Dr. Google, happens in about 3% of vaginal births. The treatment for this can include our friend, D and C. Is that a post-delivery abortion, and thus subject to abortion bans? (If such a thing could actually be or could be construed in that manner.)

To answer this question we go back to my college debate and subsequent coaching of high school debaters. No academic debate can proceed without the definition of terms. If the meaning of the terms used are not agreed upon, the debaters do not know what they are talking about. Or what their opponents are talking about. Often a debate hinges upon the definition of the terms involved.

Here we define “abortion” as a procedure that is performed with the intent of producing a dead baby. A “medical procedure,” such as D and C in the instance in question, is administered with the primary intent of preserving the life of the mother, and secondarily, producing a live birth if at all possible. Any conflict in those two conclusions must be resolved according to the priorities: live mother first, then live birth.

Concerning D and C, since it is used in some abortion procedures, an objection has been raised that any D and C would be considered an abortion, in violation of the law. This is irrespective of the intent of the procedure. Obviously, this argument is flawed and blatantly false because it does not meet the definition of terms. If it is used in the preservation of the mother’s life, it does not qualify as a violation of the law.

Going further, some abortions are effected by the administration of medication. So would the administration of any medication to a pregnant woman be considered, abortion” No reasonable, logical person would interpret it that way. Anesthesia can be administered during an abortion, so would sedating a pregnant mother, even in the process of delivery, be prosecuted as an violation of the abortion ban? We are getting pretty ridiculous here. In debate, we called that reductio ad absurdum, reducing to absurdity. 

Incidentally, should an over zealous prosecutor take more than one such incident to trial and have  it summarily dismissed, he or she would most likely be subject to some legal reprimand, censure, and even sanctions. 

What about other instances? If a baby is stillborn and some placental fragments remain within the mother’s uterus, would that removal be prosecution worthy? Asked and answered. How about a little more obscure example. A baby is still born, dead, but not delivered. Would the surgical removal of the dead baby be abortion? We answer that by asking a simple question: Did a medical intervention deliberately result in the death of the infant? If the answer is no, then the answer is, “No.”

The final and most difficult situation is when a living baby utero is threatening the life of the mother, for some reason.  And here we defer to the experts. (https://www.epm.org/resources/2010/Feb/20/what-about-woman-whose-life-threatened-pregnancy-o/)

And I quote: While he was United States Surgeon General, Dr. C. Everett Koop stated publicly that in his thirty-eight years as a pediatric surgeon, he was never aware of a single situation in which a preborn child’s life had to be taken in order to save the life of the mother. He said the use of this argument to justify abortion in general was a “smoke screen.”

Further: Due to significant medical advances, the danger of pregnancy to the mother has declined considerably since 1967. Yet even at that time Dr. Alan Guttmacher of Planned Parenthood acknowledged, “Today it is possible for almost any patient to be brought through pregnancy alive, unless she suffers from a fatal illness such as cancer or leukemia, and, if so, abortion would be unlikely to prolong, much less save, life.” Dr. Landrum Shettles says that less than 1 percent of all abortions are performed to save the mother’s life. End quote.

You can read the entire explanation of the options at the above referenced location. So in conclusion, it seems that the abortion advocates have failed to consider the definition of terms, and literally, do not know what they are talking about. 

Abortion Complications

 On Wednesday, July 20, the Tennessean ran an article bemoaning the fact that OBGYN training and practice has become extremely difficult and convoluted due to the overturning of the Roe decision. In essence, the article spelled out the difficulty for doctors in knowing how to “treat” pregnant women (or “birthing persons,” as some say). “What if there is a complication and the doctor does not know how to proceed?”

Just as a helpful piece of advice, they might pull out the medical texts from the 1960's. I do not recall doctors or OBGYN practitioners struggling with how to handle problem pregnancies. With maybe one or two outlier exceptions, the doctor treats the mother (bp) in order to save her life. No problem or controversy. Incidentally, ectopic pregnancies are not considered true medical pregnancies as there is no chance that a live birth will occur. Generally, “abortion” refers to the termination of a viable pregnancy which has a reasonable likelihood of producing a live baby.

What the article failed to mention is that the practice of abortion has become so commonplace that many medical practitioners use it as a standard operating procedure when any difficulty occurs. It can be abbreviated as SOP. And unfortunately, it has become a literal sop to many. And that is the root of the supposed problems. As any insurance agent knows, insurance coverage is normally restricted to “medically necessarily.” Any medical procedure should conform to that standard. “Is this necessary?”

That would even simplify the hullabaloo over juvenile sex treatment. Statistics show that gender dysphoria, especially among young adolescents, clears up by middle to late teens. It is not hard to find reports from individuals who regret early choices, especially the irreversible ones. 

Me thinks the abortion advocates doth protest too much.